Two more years? There is no case for extending Palantir s NHS contract

Yesterday the Financial Times and Guardian reported that ministers plan to extend Palantir’s contract for the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) by two years, rather than exercise the break clause when the initial term ends in February 2027 – the decision for which needs to be made by the end of this year.

According to the reports, the government has concluded that replacing Palantir within the next four months is not practical and would be too disruptive. Reportedly, ministers are drawing up plans to procure a British alternative and replace Palantir in two years’ time.

The government has not yet confirmed this decision. It still has time to get this right.

It makes no sense to extend the Palantir contract while launching a two-year procurement for an alternative. An extension on these terms is an admission that the FDP is not the long-term answer for the NHS, rendering the decision to keep paying for it and keep embedding it in NHS systems inexplicable.

Trusts already had systems in place which they and the Chief Data Analytics Officers (CDAO) Network have described as having superior functionality to the FDP. It was adopting the FDP – which Trusts did not want to do – which was disruptive, with associated patient safety risks as well. Marc Farr, CDAO Network chair and chief data officer at Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, wrote an open letter on behalf of the network stating that “many CDAOs already have similar tools in use that presently exceed the capability and application of what the FDP is currently trying to develop or roll out at a system level.”

Freedom of Information responses obtained by Medact and reported by the Guardian found that 29 trusts listed by NHS England as “realising benefits” from the FDP said the platform was either not live or that they were not using any of its applications.

Despite these concerns, hospitals and GP surgeries were told to expand use of Palantir, at the expense of other software that NHS staff were familiar with and preferred. This meant large sums having to be  spent on “upskilling” staff whose existing proficiency in tools like SQL Server, Oracle, Qlik, Tableau, PowerBI, and R was being declared redundant.

The £330 million headline figure obscures the true cost to the NHS. One NHS data expert estimated the total taxpayer cost would be closer to £1 billion once Trust-level implementation costs are factored in. Implementing the FDP at a single Trust may need 50 days of developer time, two new project managers, and new computer systems.

The CDAO Network raised a specific concern that there has been no independent evaluation of the cost-benefit case for adopting the FDP. “The adoption and ongoing maintenance costs as part of a total cost of ownership that will sit with those who choose to use FDP needs to be made very clear before they can commit — especially with many systems under significant financial stress.”

The UK also spent £8.8 million with consultancy firm KPMG specifically to “promote adoption” of the FDP— a choice that amounts to paying a firm to sell the platform to reluctant Trusts rather than evaluating whether it is actually in the public interest.

Extending Palantir means embedding Palantir

We should not be complacent about a two-year extension. As Palantir’s proprietary software becomes embedded in the NHS’s core systems, the company stands to gain what one LSE commentator has called “unprecedented influence over the UK’s healthcare infrastructure”. The more the NHS relies on Palantir’s platform, the harder it becomes to integrate other systems, adopt alternatives or, eventually, leave.

The New York Police Department learned this in 2017: when it cancelled its Palantir contract, it reportedly struggled to retrieve not its raw data but the analysis built on it, in a form its replacement system could use. Palantir disputed the account.

NHS England’s Medium Term Planning Framework 2026/27–2028/29 expects every provider and integrated care board to onboard to the FDP and use its core products by 2028/29. So if ministers extend the contract, they will spend the next two years pushing every trust in England onto a platform they intend to replace. The NHS would pay twice: once to migrate on to Palantir, and again to migrate off it. Trusts would have dismantled their own infrastructure – the systems they have already said are superior to Palantir’s – thus making any future adoption of sovereign systems more expensive and difficult.

No-one wants this – break the clause, not public trust

Ultimately, from the streets to our hospitals to Parliament, Palantir’s NHS contract is universally unpopular. A YouGov poll published in July reportedly found that 65% of Britons backed ending the £330m deal, over 44,000 patients have filed legal objections to their health records being handled by the FDP with NHS England and more than 40 public protests took place across the country last week.

The British Medical Association has urged doctors not to use the platform and called for a complete break from Palantir. The cross-party Committees for Science, Innovation and Technology and Health and Social Care have both recommended exercising the break clause to drop the FDP.

The government should take seriously the issue of public mistrust in data sharing (Palantir staff have had access to identifiable patient data) through the FDP.  If patients fear how their data will be used, they will share less of it – with the system and with their doctors – and care, safety and research will all suffer for it. Opt-outs are not easily reversed, risking  leaving permanent gaps in the data the NHS relies on to plan services and carry out research.

No company facing allegations of involvement in grave international law violations and human rights abuses should be a recipient of public contracts – least of all contracts at the heart of our health service.

Ministers should listen to the experts and the public, and act in the interests of patients and taxpayers. Specifically, they should:

What can YOU do? Write to your MP today and ask them to attend this urgent Parliamentary briefing, sponsored by Just Treatment on alternatives to Palantir in our NHS.

Rathi Guhadasan is Chair of the Socialist Health Association.